Law judge rules Florida must rewrite non-euphoric cannabis regs

A Florida administrative law judge Friday scrapped key provisions proposed by state health regulators as a framework for the legislature’s non-euphoric cannabis plan.

The rules were hurriedly developed by the Florida Department of Health during the summer after the legislature enacted a law enabling the use of an extract for use by select group of patients, primarily epileptics. Its official name is The Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014.

The law and the extract have been widely referred to as Charlotte’s Web because of the wide publicity received by one specific non-euphoric marijuana hybrid in televised documentaries by CNN and its chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

A number of details in the Health Department rules were challenged by the state’s largest nursery operation, Costa Farms of Miami/Dade County, and by three other similar civil lawsuits.

The Department of Health proposed rules said that if two or more applicants were qualified for one of the five regional monopolies, the state would simply hold a lottery to pick the winner.

Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins sided with Costa Farms in that regard in his 71=page long ruling.

Watkins ruled that the lottery process was arbitrary and vague, and that it “fails to establish adequate standards for agency decisions and vests unbridled discretion in the agency.”

“Assuring the dependable delivery of consistently high-quality, low-THC medicine is too important to be left to chance. Rather than minimally qualified applicants, citizens of the State of Florida, including sick and vulnerable children, deserve approval of the most qualified growers, processors and dispensers of low-THC cannabis,” Watkins wrote.

Now that the broader medical marijuana Amendment 2 has failed to reach the required 60 percent vote, would-be medical marijuana companies in the state including Lakewood Ranch-based AltMed LLC have more riding on creation of rules for the non-euphoric marijuana rules.

Because of the litigation, would-be applicants have not yet had a chance to apply for one of the regional franchises. The application process, which originally looked like it would happen in September, now seems unlikely to occur before early 2015. The agency will have rewrite its rules, then resubmit them for public hearings.

The Southwest Florida territory for non-euphoric cannabis extract runs from Hillsborough County down through Sarasota and Manatee counties all the way to the Everglades.